The present invention relates to an apparatus for the controlled filling of transport containers with piece goods, especially for the introduction of sausages into a transport container.
Currently, sausages that have been portioned and twisted off in a sausage stuffing machine are removed from that machine manually and are then placed in packing containers of a subsequent packing unit. This method is not only laborious and expensive since up to five people are needed in order to convey the sausages coming from the sausage stuffing machine to the packing unit, but is also unhygienic. Each individual sausage must be picked up by hand and, at times, must be held for an extended period of time so that, during the time needed for a casing exchange in the sausage stuffing machine which is working at a high portioning speed, the packing unit which is working in cycles may be loaded. Manually conveying sausages from the sausage stuffing machine to the packing unit is therefore not economical and outdated.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus with which it is possible to fill a transport container in a controllable manner with piece goods, especially for conveying sausages that have been portioned and twisted off by a sausage stuffing machine into packing containers of the packing unit, without the sausages having been touched by personnel. The piece goods or sausages are introduced in a single or multiple layers into the transport containers, and are then conveyed to the packing unit. The construction of such an apparatus should be kept simple and, at the same time, the operating costs should be reduced to a great extent by reducing the necessary personnel compared to the required personnel for prior art methods. Also, a simple adjustment with respect to different products should be possible.